May 18, 2016
Chinese Couplets an evocative
documentary by Felicia Lowe
it was she who was now a stranger,
a reality captured in a candid moment when she realizes her childhood home is gone.
For immigrants, the decision
to leave (or the circumstances that
brought it about, as in the case of
Lowe’s mother) will ripple through
their lives and the lives of their
children like a round stone dropped
into a still pond, the concentric circles ever widening. All will be in
some way touched by what goes
unsaid.
As Lowe so tenderly and evocatively demonstrates in Chinese
A still image from the new film Chinese Couplets.
Couplets, identity is often elusive
for the children of immigrants.
and her family for years.
Movie review by Chris Honore’
Along the way she captures Even when family truths are finally
Chinese Couplets is a very per- perfectly the dilemma of so many revealed.
sonal meditation by Felicia Lowe children of immigrants who find
on the impact of immigration on they are living hyphenated lives.
Local screening on May 8
not only those who leave their She mentions that the Chinese
A screening of Chinese Coucountry of origin but on the genera- who were the first to arrive refer plets will be held on Mother’s Day,
tions that follow.
to this generation as “hollow bam- Sunday, May 8, at 3 p.m. at the New
While each immigrant’s story is boo”: Chinese on the outside but Parkway Theater, 474 24th Street
unique, it also possesses a powerful hollow on the inside. But clearly, in Oakland. Producer and director
universality for it is a deeply hu- it wasn’t because these children of Felicia Lowe will be present for a
man story of struggle and courage. immigrants were hollow; they were question and answer session folPerhaps it’s difficult for later simply struggling with the effort to lowing the film.
generations to imagine what is in- bridge the chasm between two culBen Fong-Torres will moderate
volved, both physically and emo- tures, two worlds, the one that was a discussion following a showing of
tionally, to leave one’s country of known only in old photographs and the film at 2 p.m. on Saturday, May
origin and arrive in a strange land heirlooms and the country they 7 at The Roxie Theater, 3117 16th
where language and culture – those now felt was their own.
Street in San Francisco.
layered cues and seeming indeciChinese Couplets is an official
They were Americans in ways
pherable behaviors – are not only that their parents and relatives selection of the Los Angeles Asian
opaque but can be a profound mys- could never fully comprehend.
Pacific Film Festival. The film
tery. Nothing is familiar.
Felicia Lowe’s story is touching premiered at the Center for Asian
Felicia Lowe began a quest to and unflinching for it also referenc- American Media and won best auunderstand her mother, who for es the barriers faced by Chinese dience award in 2015.
most of her life had drawn an im- immigrants due to the American
Felicia Lowe won an Emmy for
penetrable line between leaving Exclusion Laws. Countless Chi- Best Cultural Documentary for
China as a very young girl and nese were denied entry to America her film Chinatown: The Hidden
coming to America. She created based only on race. These discrim- Cities of San Francisco. She also
such an enigmatic persona that inatory laws lasted some 61 years produced and directed Carved in
Lowe was determined to explore beginning in 1882.
Silence, her documentary about the
what had always been a source of
Lowe’s film concludes with a experiences of Chinese immigrants
tension and distance between them. final trip back to China with her detained on Angel Island ImmigraWho was this woman and why mother in search of her birthplace, tion Station. The film is now used
did she refuse to discuss the past? of that village she left so many in classrooms nationwide.
Why did she insist on making her decades before. That experience
The film also will be shown on
history unavailable to Felicia, he gives a certain reality to the apho- KQED this week:
daughter?
KQED World: May 4 at 6 a.m.
rism that for immigrants you can’t
Through a series of photographs go home again. All that was then and noon, May 7 at 2 a.m.
and interviews, Lowe begins to is now viewed through a different
KQED Life: May 12 at 9:30
unravel the story, layer after layer, prism, tempered by a life apart. p.m., May 13 at 3:30 a.m.
intent, with a clear tenacity to find It wasn’t that the small village of
KQED (Channel 9): May 16 at
answers that have shadowed her Lowe’s mother had changed; rather 11 p.m., May 17 at 5 a.m.